


Unsupervised Experiments

by Rinari7



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Being Walked In On, F/M, Gender Role Reversal, Kissing, Snap (Slapjack) (Card Game), Unresolved Sexual Tension, and accompanying minor bodily harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinari7/pseuds/Rinari7
Summary: A few games of Snap during some downtime in the Oxford laboratory provides yet another opportunity for Helen to flirt with lines and edges. She takes it, of course.





	Unsupervised Experiments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinknevertalks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinknevertalks/gifts).



> I came up with this idea while looking up Victorian-era card games for a different fic, and then tinknevertalks encouraged me to dash it off. Thank you, lovely. Consider this yours. <3

Helen appreciated the slide of the smooth faces and worn edges of the cards against her hands as she shuffled them — flaunted them, really, in front of Nikola, who eyed her with a touch of enmity as he shook out his hand.

“You know the only reason you won is because I was afraid to keep getting slapped by you. My hand will be sore for at least a week.” The skin on said hand was a pinkish-red, and she knew it had to smart. But, too bad. Her hand was smarting, too.

“You’re just a poor loser.” The breeze from the lab’s open window was more than welcome, chasing away some of the stink of sulphur and iron, pulling some of the beginnings of Oxford’s summer heat and the fumes of simmering chemicals with it. Helen was grateful for that, and for the lab’s privacy, which allowed her to roll up her sleeves and pin up the top layers of her skirts.

Nikola drew his gaze up from the thin linen of her underskirts, not for the first time, and she suppressed a smile. If there was any one thing to blame for his loss, it was likely his scrutiny of the outline of her calves. While that had hardly been her intention, she wasn’t above using any advantage offered to her.

“My hand really does hurt. You’re a very mean Snap player.” His eyes took on that puppy dog expression he could do so well, that he never seemed to try on anyone else.

“No more so than you.” She shuffled the cards a second time, the back of her hand still tingling with the aftereffects of their game

“That deck of cards in your hands begs to differ.” He nodded towards it.

She tossed her head, a welcome bit of air drifting over the nape of her neck. “Go run it under some water if it hurts that badly.” She did offer him a smile now, self-satisfied and saccharine.

He made his way towards the laboratory washbasin. “You’re a cruel excuse for a woman, Helen Magnus. Not even offering to kiss it better.” His tone was half-jesting — whenever was it not? — but she still straightened, stiffened.

The water pump squeaked.

“Since when have you known me to be any sort of ‘excuse for a woman’?” She tried to keep her tone light, but the waver in it betrayed her. Very deliberately, she set down the cards, and turned towards him.

He let go of the handle, and bowed his head shaking it slightly. “Forgive my choice of words. You are every inch a woman —” His lashes fluttered as he raised his head, his gaze darting up and down her body. “— And more besides.”

She met and held his gaze, as she practically stalked towards him, wishing not for the first time she might wear trousers instead. “I accept your apology.” She held out her hand.

He stared at it, then looked at her again, perplexity written on his brow.

“Your hand, which you claim I have so grievously injured,” she demanded. “Since you seem so keen for my lips to grace it.”

“I said—” He cleared his throat and tried again, a storm in his grey eyes she couldn’t quite name. “I said it without expectation.” Still he set his hand in hers, as a lady might offer hers to a gentleman.

“I know,” Helen murmured, and then brushed her lips over his skin.

She kissed his knuckles, hard and pronounced under her mouth, then moved to the back of his hand proper. Water droplets clung to her lips, and automatically she darted her tongue out to lick them away. His skin tasted of lavender soap and electricity. He drew in a sharp breath; she swallowed, and, feeling daring, turned his hand over to kiss that juncture between the heel of the palm and the wrist.

She raised her head slightly to look at him. “Does the treatment seem to have helped?” Her voice surprised her with its low huskiness, her pulse thrumming in her ears.

“I think that is for the doctor to decide,” he murmured, in a way that sent heat coiling inside her, heat that had nothing to do with the sun outside.

Oh, she wanted — her heart skipped, at the indecency of it all — to set her lips again to his skin, to take a finger between her lips, to run her tongue — but she shouldn’t. He met her gaze, his soft smile telling her he saw the war in her mind. With his other hand, he reached for her, for the side of her head, and she found herself allowing her eyelids to flutter closed.

The click of a latch, the loud squeal of hinges — she dropped his hand like a hot iron and stepped back, heart racing for an entirely different reason now.

“Nigel!” Nikola sounded a bit choked, his words clipped. “What do you want?”

She turned to face their friend. Nigel had stopped short just barely inside the room, hand still on the door handle. “Am I interrupting anything? I didn’t mean to barge in on —” He seemed to search for the right word, shoving his free hand into a pocket as his gaze drifted between her and Nikola.

Helen breathed an an inward sigh of relief it was “only” him, still finding herself unable to quite meet his eyes. “No, you didn’t barge in on anything at all!” Quickly, she walked towards the table, picking up the deck and shuffling it again, just to have something to do with her hands, to distract her from the heat rising in her cheeks. “We were just playing a few rounds of Snap to pass the time while we waited for this to finish distilling.”

Nigel took another step inside, and carefully closed the door behind. “Yeah, that’s what I came to check on. How that was coming along.” He pointed towards the setup, where the beaker above the flame was completely dry, all traces of the solution long since evaporated.

She and Nikola swore, loudly.


End file.
